unfortunately, current immigration policies are preventing american businesses from hiring foreign students who earn advanced degrees in approximate science, technology, engineering and mathematics from our best universities. from growing startups to u.s. multinationals, american employers are desperate for qualified stem workers no matter where they're from. microsoft, for example, has over 6,000 job openings waiting to be filled by scientists, researchers, engineers and developers. for now these openings and many others will remain vacant because too few american students are graduating with stem degrees and foreign stem graduates can't get the visas they need. every year the u.s. invests in educating thousands of foreign students in stem fields at our top universities only to send them back to compete against us. chairman lamar smith, along with congressman raul labrador, congressman bob goodlatte, and of course, the gentleman from california, mr. issa, have all worked on this and we have now put forward the measure before us to spur job creation by providing a pathway for american educa